How’s this for jarring?
On Friday, in part based on tiebreakers, the official NHL standings had Dallas and Colorado in the 14th and 15th spots in the Western Conference.
Yes, and that would be next-to-last and last.
The Avalanche’s problems have been on display and under discussion around here, but the Stars’ fall from the league’s elite — at least so far — is more surprising. They not only got to the Western Conference finals last spring, they were competitive against the Red Wings.
The Stars’ co-general managers, Les Jackson and Brett Hull, and coach Dave Tippett all received extensions that take them through the 2010-11 season.
It’s not so much the record — the Stars were 5-6-2 heading into a Saturday night game at San Jose — as the atmosphere of chaos in the wake of the offseason signing of center Sean Avery. He’s the supreme agitator, but he can be more disruptive of his own team’s chemistry than of the other team’s focus.
Last weekend, after a loss in Boston, Dallas veteran Mike Modano sharply criticized Avery and the Stars’ holdover pest, Steve Ott, saying the agitation approach had backfired that night and was “idiotic and stupid.”
Most reading those comments inferred he was talking about the approach the Stars were taking in general since the Avery signing, and not only about that game. Both players drew 10-minute misconducts against the Bruins and yapped at both the men in striped shirts and Boston fans.
Modano tried to back off a bit in the next few days, saying he was talking more specifically of the events that night in Boston.
He was right the first time.
Signing Avery was a stupid move, and the Stars are paying for it.
Avery pulls off the feat of bringing down the average IQ about 80 points.
No, the Stars’ slow start can’t solely be attributed to Avery’s toxic presence. But their recovery depends on making sure he doesn’t completely poison the atmosphere — on his own team.
Juggling figures.
In recent years, the Avalanche generally has had the second-highest average ticket prices in the NHL, behind only Toronto.
That alone doesn’t offend me.
I believe the league whiffed on a chance to roll back ticket prices in the wake of the lockout, and even failed to deliver on Gary Bettman’s implied promise. I still maintain that a rollback and flattening would have been a healthy step for the league because of the linked relationship between revenue and the salary cap for each team.
Yet it certainly is Kroenke Sports’ right to set the prices wherever it wants.
Here are some examples, drawn from some Friday scouting at Ticketmaster’s site for nonclub-level tickets. For the Saturday home game against Nashville, lower-bowl single seats were available in section 126 for $145 or $120 (depending on the row), in section 130 for $100 and section 134 for $92. (Alas, the $216 seats on the glass were sold out.)
Didn’t want to spend $92, or $98 with the “convenience” charge? (I think that should be offset by an “inconvenience” credit for having to type those stupid security check codes for an event no self-respecting scalper is going to try to buy every ticket it can.) Then it was upstairs, for $68, $56, $46, $38, or $25.
The Avalanche doesn’t “hide” those prices. That’s roughly how they’re listed on the pocket schedules. Season-ticket holders get a discount.
But the catch is that this doesn’t gibe with what the publication Team Marketing Report lists as the Avalanche’s average ticket price — “only” $40.62. That’s a figure the folks at the Pepsi Center would prefer to be cited, and some outlets dutifully have done so, but that’s a joke.
Beginning in 2002-03, in reporting to the TMR, the Avalanche was among several NHL teams that declared a great number of lower bowl tickets to be “premium seating,” which isn’t considered in figuring the average ticket price.
With the Avalanche struggling to fill seats at the Pepsi Center in trying times, including on the ice, that kind of gamesmanship is counterproductive, because if folks actually believe the figure, the sticker shock and sense of betrayal are palpable when they actually try to buy tickets.
Spotlight on …
Hall of Fame winger Glenn Anderson
Anderson, the former University of Denver winger who had 498 NHL goals in 16 seasons with Edmonton, Toronto, the New York Rangers and St. Louis, will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame Monday in Toronto. The two-man player class also includes Igor Larionov, the former Soviet great who went on to have a 14-season career in the NHL and was one of the game’s class acts.
In a conference call last week, Anderson said his one-season stay at DU and the tutelage of coach Marshall Johnston were important in his development. Anderson arrived at DU at age 17 in 1978 after being recruited from Burnaby, the Vancouver suburb where Joe Sakic was being raised at the time.
“I think Denver was spectacular,” he said. He added that “in the ’70s . . . a lot of players weren’t even thinking about going to school as a backup plan for their hockey career. A lot of players played in junior hockey and they had one dimension; I think they were going to get into the NHL.
“I think I was at that point where (it) was finally turning — where players had choices of where they wanted to go and play and have a backup plan.
“I think schooling is very important for any kid playing the game today, and it was very important for me. Especially with the preparation and the discipline that you have to have for school and for sports. And Marshall Johnston was a big part of that. And I’m very, very honored to have him as my coach and one of my mentors in the game. I have many, many memories, and he taught me many things of schooling and of the sport and of the game. And I owe a great deal of respect and attributes to him for getting to where I am today.”
Anderson had 26 goals and 29 assists in 1978-79 as a freshman. In their first NHL draft after they were one of four World Hockey Association franchises accepted into the older league, the Oilers took him with the 69th overall pick in 1979.
For most of the next season, Anderson was with the Canadian national team and played in the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid, where the Canadian showing wasn’t considered miraculous. He joined the Oilers the next season and spent most of his career there, playing on five Stanley Cup champions in Edmonton.
